How I Take Handheld Panoramas…

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I've been asked a lot about how I get sharp handheld panoramas without using a tripod (as is always my preference) and in this video I show you, as well as talking through all the reasons you might want to capture panoramas for landscape photography, along with some of the pitfalls.
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[@JamesPopsysPhoto]

Hi everyone, I'm sorry if you've already seen this video - I've had a nightmare uploading it. I'm back from Antarctica now though so hopefully everything is back to normal... Thanks for watching! 👉 Instagram: instagram.com/jamespopsys 👉 Twitter: twitter.com/jamespopsys 👉 Presets, Prints & Books: www.jamespopsys.com/store 👉 Newsletter: www.jamespopsys.com/newsletter 👉My Gear inc 5% off Kase Filters: www.jamespopsys.com/gear

[@tjsinva]

It's OK, we knew you all were playing with the penguins. 🐧

[@colbybundy6082]

No worries, your videos are always worth the wait

[@robgeorge102]

Glad you explained, I thought i had become psychic but couldn’t work out why I hadn’t won the lottery.

[@peterhamilton7218]

I do this even with my smart phone. Put it on Manual mode, set all of my exposure, WB and focus. Snap away in portrait orientation, overlapping by about 50%. Then I can stitch it in PS and get much higher resolution and detail at any given wide FOV. Smart phone wide angle lenses aren't all that, but even the better ones will still have that unique wide-angle perspective, distortion and usually softer edges once you correct for distortion. Panoramas just have a look to them. So much fun to shoot.

[@lowdesertpunk]

As someone who faffed with panoramas many years ago, I appreciate it that you mentioned the parallax problem and gave at least some advice. Back then we had to stitch the files manually which included precisely selecting around ten reference points for each image overlap so the software could map, align and rewarp the images. Later some clever people came up with algorithms to automatically do that. However any amount of parallax error was a huge pain when you where trying to blend the remapped files seamlessly. To this day I catch myself checking panoramas for duplicate trees on the horizon. Photoshop introduced user-friendly implementations of the same techniques a while later but in the beginning it was still quite bad when blending images that would not match perfectly. Now with computational imaging it might be less of a problem than ever before but it still baffles me when landscape photographers who are super picky about almost every other technical aspect seem to completely ignore the parallax issue. Nowadays I rarely shoot any panoramas but when I do I kind of prop the camera with the lens on my left hand's thumb and try to rotate it around that point (as the nodal point is somewhere in the middle of the lens). Works better if there's anything around to firmly place my fist on, like a rock or a fallen tree or some handrail.

[@jremi]

First time I see this video from James and it is 2 years old... I recently saw a video from Nigel Danson who was talking about shooting hand held panoramas and, as I was getting ready to invest in some tripod tools to make panoramas easier and avoid parallax errors and what not, I got really interested in this technique. So this video here is so so useful for me! Thanks a lot, James!

[@albedo0point39]

Great tips - I hadn’t thought of the depth of field hack before - mostly used to get wider perspectives. Two tips I’d add - 1/ try to make sure you don’t have sky-only frames as I think the stitcher appreciates some detail to join frames up and 2/ grab frames slightly wider than you think, since the joining sometimes results in untidy edges which give you a narrower clean crop than you’d planned (Lightroom will step in and do a ‘context sensitive’ fill here as an alternative).

[@supervalentin42]

It looks so easy but we all know it's not lol. Never tried this before, but I'll give it a go. Thanks for the tips.

[@alba-photo]

Excellent tutorial James. Personally I'm Using the Brenizer method as often as I have an opportunity. If you get your composition right it can give you stunning - large format like effect. I've noticed that it is a good practice (before merge to panorama) to sort your vignette in LR especially if you going F 1.4. Helps with the transition areas. Love the blackout bookmark shot before and after. Thank you.

[@DA-yd2ny]

Remember watching this tutorial some time ago….. watching it again and loving it! I learn things I’ve forgotten or just missed then. Re-visiting is a good thing

[@herotaco]

Hi James, thanks for the great education as usual. Although I am more into shooting portraits and weddings, you've quickly become my favorite photographer with your style and ability to teach technique, while at the same time providing visual evidence of your knowledge. There must be millions of photographers at all levels that fancy landscape and nature work, but I've yet to run into any that share the ability to compose, tell a story, and simply wow the audience like you do consistently. Your work is amazing. I was recently looking at some of your images from Iceland, simply breathtaking, and I do not use that term lightly. Not to ramble on, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your work and give a big thanks for those of us that find inspiration and education through your content. Thanks!

[@spidersj12]

I've found that panoramas are easy to do in software, I use ON! Photo RAW, if there's lots of contrast between objects / sections of the photo to help make the stitching easier. I live above the arctic circle and and on a recent road trip along an immensely long road back home 714 km) I took panoramas long the way of the mountains in the distance along the highway and it is sometimes difficult for the software to stitch images together when the sky is a very light grey the mountains are mostly white with maybe the occasional bits of shadow contrast from the sun that is 5-10° above the horizon and the rest of the landscape is snow covered, with the occasional short stubby tree here and there. On the other hand I have some frozen river shots on other outings that are 10 x 1 panoramas that are 40,000 x 4000 comprised of 16+ images. Only occasionally do I shot a panorama on my PD travel tripod. on my road trip I mentioned above, it was as cold as -39°C so getting out of the car and losing all that heat in the car, not fun, and standing outside shooting lots of panoramas not fun either. I should mention that all the panoramas I shoot are a three bracketed (-2EV, 0EV, +2EV) set for each "frame" of the panorama. I do an HDR merge first, then apply custom settings to the images, the same settings for all the HDR images, then merge the resulting HDR images into a panorama. Sometimes one of the three bracketed shots just doesn't work with the alignment in the HDR mode, so I leave it out. That can, but not always mess up a panorama.

[@AliasJimWirth]

Thank you for posting this video. I think it is the second time? I saw the title last week, about, but it was gone when I went to view it. I was so hoping you would re-post it. Again, thanks. Some good tips for me here.

[@BradBeaird]

Wow that idea of the black blanking bookmark beginning and end of shots is such a great idea! That's one I haven't heard before. Thanks for sharing.

[@edwardtye4119]

I look forward to trying this out next time I take my camera out. Thank you!

[@PavlosPapageorgiou]

I'f finding that I can go back through shots that I took years ago as alternative framings of a scene, not intended for a panorama, and stitch them to get a slightly wider view.

[@adamsabaz2415]

I've used your method a ton over the last year. Works extremely well. Often my best images that resonate with community.

[@DessieTots]

I’m so glad you told us that the final image is a panorama because I would be searching the video looking for it. I’ll need to watch this again, I’ve obviously missed something.

[@Johnlancaster]

Just discovered your channel - hills and cameras. Time to procrastinate, lots to watch 🤣

[@avoidingbadlife]

A great step-by-step guide on the subject. Subcribed to you a while ago and after that got your presets for Lightroom. Have to say that you're definitely the most down to earth and relaxed kind of a professional on KZbin in photography. Your videos are relaxed, rich in valuable information and also edited to perfection. A big thanks and keep up the great work man! 👌💎

[@tommayo5778]

The trousers are back!! Great video ;)

[@DanielLopez-up6os]

Thanks for the awesome tips man, always strugled on making panoramas look consisten across the image.

[@jimschmidt7303]

Great video as always. FYI if someone is worried about nodal error I made a bracket from hardware store parts for about out $3. 1/4" nuts and bolts and a 6" metal repair bracket. When I tested lenses there was not much error with lenses below 100mm. Even lenses above 100mm error was not crazy to where the editing program could not figure it out.

[@johnleonard4149]

Thank you, you helped me think in a new perspective

[@eltinjones4542]

I don't have the fancy attachments for tripod panos or an L bracket I've tried something similar to you in the past and it's works for me anyhow 📷👍

[@KylerSteele]

Handheld panoramas are essential for anyones tool kit! I love using them

[@courtalton]

This is absolutely the best timing ever! Leaving for a trip and I need to get a panorama shot for photography class in school. Great video!!!

[@jackmortimer329]

Thanks for this tutorial. I have not yet done panoramas, but that could change as a result of this video. Another take-away for me is the marking of beginning and end of the panorama. I will use this in vacation shooting to delineate the beginning and end of pictures from each location, like islands on a cruise.

[@rs779]

I viewed this right after a panorama video you did 5 years ago (I think). Combined great tips. Will be practicing before an upcoming holiday where panorama shots will be ideal. One question - in the older video you suggested you bracketed each shot and then combined into an HDR and then stitched together. In this video it wasn’t obvious that you bracketed the photos and merged the HDR’s. If you didn’t, would you only suggest bracketing if there was quite a dynamic range? Subscribed quite a while ago - really enjoy your humour and style plus knowledge. I think you are in Wales now, great countryside and we are planning a trip there for fall 2023.

[@johnchedsey1306]

This is a great video, particularly since people may find themselves out and about without a tripod or fancy nodal point gear. I've been practicing handheld panoramas for a couple years now and almost always get a reasonably decent result from it. I've found that if you're using a telephoto lens, the sweet spot for a lot of shots is between 50-70mm (albeit dependent on precisely what you're trying to capture). My Canon R5 seems to be good about sticking to the same white balance for all the shots, so that's an issue I've never run into in stitching. I tend to shoot looking through the viewfinder with emphasis on keeping level throughout the process and trying to rotate my body so the lens stays more or less in the same spot. The final thing I try to do is just look through the lens and move through the area I want to capture to make sure I'll have the proper amount of sky and land. Oh! And start and finish the shots beyond your composition so that you have wiggle room on each end of the series.

[@TheMaxshark74]

Nice tutorial, just one thing... nodal point is not usually located on front element, but between it and the sensor, and has to be discovered for each lens by parallax test

[@davidbailey1689]

Thank you James. I had always rotated about my body. It always worked but, if there’s a better technique, such as you suggest, I am all for it.

[@toomuchkit964]

Great instruction and tips, many thanks

[@pixlplague]

Wow panoramas are amazing: it even erased that little green sign on the barn :P Joking aside, still really enjoy watching your videos James, keep up the great work!

[@sophiergabriel3103]

Thank you for this! I appreciate the walking through of a technique from beginning to end including an explanation of when you would use this technique. I have never made a panorama (apart from when my drone makes one automatically) and I would like to try one. I heard you say the tip of bracketing the series with a blank photo at the beginning and end of the series but it was nice to be reminded. One of the things I find overwhelming is getting into postproduction and having loads of very similar photos and I have forgotten the reasoning for taking so many photos?!?! At least if they are bracketed I will have a better chance of remembering that those 9 are part of a panorama.

[@JonathanKimberley]

If you forget at the time in LR afterwards you can group photos into stacks based on capture time. I'm sure this can be done in other software. Just set the interval short enough to only include the time it takes to make each panorama. I have also used this grouping when in burst mode.

[@rowlandh25]

Awesome video Hames. As always informative and a pleasure to watch.

[@billmckendry8316]

James, excellent video, as usual. As mentioned elsewhere, it would be interesting to understand why you shot multiple rows in horizontal (landscape) position as opposed to vertical (portrait). Thanks for the great work.

[@davidpowell5437]

That's a great little demystifier. As you say, for most of us that's about all you need. I've managed to fumble my way through a few self taught Lightroom panos - I did duplicate a family member on Barmouth beach but got off lightly as the family enjoyed the joke. What I hadn't considered was the light balance - almost certainly left on Auto. I've been lucky with that so far - won't need that luck in futute!

[@2LargeHounds]

Great video! Always pick up good tips and a laugh with your excellent dry humor(or humour).

[@robertgrenader858]

I started doing panos on a tripod with a nodal slide, but discovered that unless there as any subject with right angles (stairs, rails, etc) that the nodal slide was unnecessary. . Now, unless it is at night, I do all of the shots handhelds and never have stitching issues. One big thing was to make sure that any CPLs are not on the lens when doing a pano.

[@CluelessYoutuber]

Incredibly informational video, James. Very helpful for understanding panoramas.

[@walkslow7509]

I learned something from you today, thank you!

[@tudora5498]

Great video, very nice explanations around panoramas, in terms of why, how, etc.. I am looking forward to the video of taking the image in the conditions you are looking for.

[@joellinker9899]

Thank you for the useful information! Great presentation, as usual. 📷

[@steveboys5369]

Really useful James, thankyou

[@joshuariggphotography8531]

Great video James always great to watch it while on my lunch at work

[@fintux]

Nice tips! I never thought about panorama as a way to achieve a narrower depth of field.

[@brokenalgorithms4741]

Back button focus is gold! My lens stays on auto but I can use either one easily. Now back button feels natural. At first it took some getting used to. I had a recent pano with a terrible artifact in the middle. I probably rotated my body. It was up Mt. Etna and I was tired. I only shoot handheld.

[@Keyloggs1]

I never thought of the benefits using a 85mm panorama to get a 50mm shot and get a nice depth of field. Will try this for sure! Thanks!

[@greentenrninja6452]

Tried my first pano the other night. Love the tips so I can try again!

[@daveychainsaw961]

Thanks James, In the space of a few weeks you've become my favourite photography channel. Your no-nonsense approach and humour make the videos effortlessly watchable. I've been a photographer since the 90's yet I've still learnt lots from you. With the panorama, is that two rows of photos? If so does it matter that you will have a different elevation of the lens for the bottom row or does the software work it out? All the best.

[@hobbytake2845]

Excellent tutorial! Thanks for putting it together in simple terms.

[@zigatretjak75]

This is a keeper vlog!

[@gregcooper2719]

You’ve made it look so easy… will try and see how difficult it really is!

[@MartinOcando]

Question: Are you not using back button focus anymore? I ask because you recommend that first AF, then switch AF off with the switch in your lens, and then shoot the panorama. But if you use back button focus is much simpler. No need to turn off AF.

[@lizzrobinson]

Really brilliant video, I've struggled with panoramas before as it's not usually what I shoot so I'm hoping this helps in furture for the once in a blue moon that I take one!

[@ruthwilson9449]

Very clear and useful guidelines.

[@danielhenzphotography]

Uh paralax, had to learn that the hard way. wide angle lens near the ground does not work. But keeping the front element it the same place, I need to try. Wasn't expecting to learn that.

[@minus1db]

Thanks James

[@Brewyy]

Excellent video, appreciate all the work. Learned so much!

[@BenjaminCutting]

Super helpful! Can’t wait to give it a go!

[@heathbarlow8769]

😂😂Déjà vu, yes. Not because you were there a few weeks ago but because I watched this video last week. Can't believe I watched it all again 😂😂

[@Jack-se2iz]

First time viewing this video for me, so thank you, I’ve been doing my panos in PS and there are always a few glitches. Will try LRC next time. Great edit , BTW, and lovely old house. Can’t wait for your Antarctica photos. What a lifetime adventure!!!

[@clintwoosley9512]

Thanks for the lesson! Heading to DC and NYC over the next couple of months so should find a couple places to use this . Hope to join yall in Antarctica in a few years

[@KellerChewning]

Yes! I NEEDED THIS! you don't understand how long ive had to use the one on the iphone... thank you jesus.

[@roadshoulderphotography683]

My question is, you set focus on subject and then turned it off to manual. Did you readjust focus as you took the images because my thought would be as you moved the camera down for the second or third row of shots, the foreground was closer than the subject. Would not the foreground now be out of focus???? Since you didn't refocus for each shot... I'm confused.

[@JamesPopsysPhoto]

Foreground stays out of focus for the whole thing - the subject is the only thing I want sharp :)

[@davidburchettephotography6513]

Good discussion about how to do a pano handheld. I’m one of those who has looked into the nodal point method and prefer to use that but this would certainly do the job in many (most?) cases and be easier and quicker. Good point about ‘rotate the camera, not your body’.

[@garyrowe58]

For a more accurate location of the entrance pupil (one of the nodal points, the one used to rotate around in panoramas) look into the lens from the front, and it's where the aperture iris 'seems' to be (to your eyes). Note where that position is on the side of your lens, and that's what you should be rotating around.

[@davidburchettephotography6513]

@@garyrowe58 Yes, there are a few videos out there that go into great depth and detail about how to find the nodal point on any lens.

[@1717jbs]

Great vid James! Thanks.

[@zwieseler]

I discovered my a6500 Sony does in-camera Panoramas in portrait framing. So, you don’t get one of those long skinny horizontal Panos. Bloody brilliant.

[@kqschwarz]

I would have never thought shooting a panorama without a tripod would yield anything other than terrible results. Your results look reasonable, at least at the level of 1/2 KZbin resolution. Regarding using panorama to achieve a wide field of view with a wide aperture, I would think this technique would generate quite a lot of field curvature for the plane of focus, resulting not only in a spherical zone of sharpness, but also the technique could lower the resolution of image stitching as the plane of focus of adjacent images is slightly different. Overall very interesting. I think I will have to experiment with this technique to explore the possibilities and limitations. I'll use a tripod, but the spherical plane of focus raises the question as to whether the results will be intriguing or disturbing. Thanks for the tips.

[@barbarachamberlain6918]

So helpful. Thank you!

[@walex19]

This reminds me of the brenizer method. It can give you a look similar to medium format.

[@DS-ke8pq]

Aha, a bit of Brenizer technique. Been thinking of doing some myself for landscape work, but suspect you needed your main subject closer to show real effect. 👍

[@gm010379]

THANKYOU...

[@RichardEllaPhotography]

Hi James, Another good video. Slightly off-topic question. Which FJallraven jacket is that you’re wearing in this video?

[@Michael-Bennett]

Bookmarking the beginning and end of the sequence is something I've done in the past but usually forget to do. Really need to remember because, as you said, it can sometimes be tricky to know what photos are part of the sequence. Usually just take 3 or 4 shots though.

[@ruthwilson9449]

I often take a thumbs up shot before and after the sequence.

[@jakjakalos5456]

Thanks this was very helpful 👍. Can you do this on lightroom mobile too?

[@Rob.1340]

Thank you. 👍📷😎

[@Tastewithnewdrinks]

Great review.

[@jsimes1]

Oh man early on in my photography adventure I watched a video about nodal rails and parallax and I spent like $600 on some really heavy kit that was a total PITA to set up and use! I haven't used it but once and the pano I shot with the rail was all messed up! But I've got some really nice panos just using my rotating tripod head and have had no issues with stitching. I might sell all that nodal crap on eBay and buy a new lens I might never use! 😂

[@twotone3070]

Did you have the power winder on so that you could take all 29 images very quickly?

[@rogeryoung3587]

A little nod to Ryan Brenizer, to acknowledge his introduction of this method, wouldn't have hurt.

[@JamesPopsysPhoto]

It's a pretty straightforward technique, I'm not sure it should be credited entirely to the first person to write a blog post about it...

[@kevlarnegative]

Hey James. Why get the 85 GM when the sigma 85 is much better and cheaper? Is it just OEM preference?

[@amateurphotographerassocia5965]

Question, why the battery grip and not just bring extra batteries?

[@garyrowe58]

(Not trying to answer for him, but just purely from my own experience; I find I need the grip to make the camera fit better in my hands, and I like the extra weight. And I take it off when using a tripod, though.)

[@christophfischer972]

Do you use a LA-EA5 Adapter with your A7R4? There a so many nice / great A-Mount Lenses... (Sony, Minolta). Thx 4 your video!

[@JJ-mx3gh]

So what happened to the video last week? You uploaded and then set it to private.

[@fredfinke2583]

Where is the newsletter link?

[@08ryanalollipop]

Thanks for this. I'll have to try it out! What aperture did you use?

[@generalangst1612]

I may have missed this but why does he sweep back and forth?

[@mennodv]

i was wondering the same and was hoping to find a clarifying comment… @jamespopsys

[@alistairsedgwick8295]

James how long do u drive for to get to locations like these?!

[@PavlosPapageorgiou]

The main reason to take the panorama by twisting your body is to keep steady while using the built-in function of your phone or camera, not an issue if you're stitching in post.

[@jeffslade1892]

Gosh that's so complicated isn't it. I just take my Lumix G7, put it into "Panorama Shot", push the button to start shooting whilst rotating the camera, push the button to stop, and it does it. More to the point it does it very well.

[@EmilWall]

Is it a good idea to compensate for vignetting before stitching the photos or do you just even that out in photoshop? I think it’s pretty easily noticable in the sky.

[@JamesPopsysPhoto]

Yes - definitely! :)

[@Dan-kb2oz]

Keeping the same example of human eyes, you should imagine the camera is a cyclops and try to keep it's one eye in the same place, just turning on it's axis. :P Cheers James, helpful tips.

[@AnomandarisPurake]

Great video. I was wondering why you shot horizontally and not vertically? And, do you always "develop" the photo after merging the images? Cheers, can't wait for the Antarctica stuff!

[@paulplus3830]

He shot 3 rows.

[@AnomandarisPurake]

@@paulplus3830 yeah, saw that. I was just wondering if there was a reason for that instead of vertical. Cheers.

[@paulplus3830]

@@AnomandarisPurake Oh, I see. Well, I guess it makes no difference in the end. Maybe you'd lose your line easier, if you switch more often between lines and/or rows. So it might depend on which is longer or how good you are at keeping the grid.

[@tigpig7189]

Do you know any good places to photograph in/near Swansea (I'm there for a week)

[@Onscrewngameplay]

When I merge photos like this, I tend to do the edit first before stitching them together. Is there a particular reason to do the stitching before editing?

[@keithw8646]

Is it the front element that should be kept in the same place or the sensor? I’m wondering if a long lens would need the sensor in the same spot instead. Great video, as always!

[@JamesPopsysPhoto]

Neither to be honest! The nodal point for each lens is different, but as a very very rough rule of thumb the front element is usually fine provided you’ve not got anything too close in your frame 🙂

[@stephen-bolton]

Tudor A - No that is incorrect. It is the pupil entry point (commonly but incorrectly called the nodal point) that needs to be over the axis of rotation.

[@tudora5498]

@@stephen-bolton I just checked, I was wrong. I will delete my previous comment so that I do not spread false information. Thanks for pointing it out!

[@MSmith-Photography]

I like to shoot much wider and then crop to account for camera movement and to ensure that get everything that I want. Most of my panoramas are done with perspective in mind just because I like it. I'm weird. I know. 🤣

[@tomfoord8860]

you lost me there. How did you manage 29 shots in the small-ish width? It appeared that you took multiple passes that varied in the vertical angle?

[@chevy2die]

WHAT IS THAT JACKET?? I WANT IT

[@amateurphotographerassocia5965]

Great!